This booklet illustrates and compares three important standards (levels of expectation) set for diploma examination writing in Social Studies 30: excellent, proficient, and satisfactory. Sample papers are used to illustrate the scoring criteria for group leaders and markers are presented, along with accompanying commentaries, or rationales, that…

A qualitative study described the practices that supported literacy development within one first-grade classroom community and focused on one child, beginning with his entry into first grade and ending near the end of his second-grade year. Practices such as the deliberate valuing of children's live at home, the connection between home and school…

A qualitative case study examined professor perceptions of the influence of race on the establishment of credibility in the classroom. Non-participant observation and semi-structured interviews elicited participant-generated conceptualizations of credibility of three Black and three White professors in the Northwest. Results indicated that…

Disorder and linearity are essential to science, but empirically derived laws indicate that counts do reflect underlying structure and can support inference. Starting from the premise that a linear structure underlies data, G. Rasch deduced that the necessary and sufficient mechanism to convert from counts to linear measures is the logistic ogive.…

This study uses a comparative case study of two high school teachers' units about the U.S. civil rights movement to explore the construct of subject-specific pedagogy. The research examines each teacher's views of subject matter and learners as a means of understanding and explaining instructional practices. Through that investigation, a number of…

This study compares the reflections of preservice teachers when they are considering pedagogical issues in general methods courses versus content knowledge combined with pedagogy in social studies methods courses. The paper presents a theoretical framework for the study conducted among 44 Master of Education preservice teachers of a large…

This qualitative research study investigated fraternity members' perceptions of how involvement in a fraternity and in student government influenced their college experiences. Four fraternity members who were also members of the student senate were interviewed. Three of the participants were Caucasian and one was African-American. Interview…

This study had three objectives: (1) to examine and describe factors that help to create a positive attitude toward learning; (2) to examine and describe factors that led to students' participation in the process-oriented approach; and (3) to examine and describe perceptions and experiences that students had involving the process-oriented…

A qualitative study was conducted of the way faculty perceived the effects of national rankings on two departments in a large public research university. The department of physics and astronomy and the school of business of the university were both ranked in the top 20 nationally, but both were ranked lower than the administration and faculty…

Recent research has investigated the impact of neighborhood violence on children's mental health and moral development. Based on the view that the way in which children construe their experiences of violence mediates the impact of unsafe neighborhoods and that children's narrative is important for children's construction of self and incorporation…

Interviews were conducted with 20 out of 40 primary teachers who, 3 or 4 years earlier, had participated in inservice workshops on Cognitively Guided Instruction (CGI), a research-based approach that emphasizes using children's mathematical knowledge to teach mathematics and who had consented to do the interviews. Although all but one teacher were…

This manual has been designed as a practical guide to quantifying and measuring the results, or outputs, of public library service to children. The basic output measures presented are tailored to reflect library services to children (defined as persons 14 years old and younger) and their care givers. Six categories of measures are presented: (1)…

This paper presents recently completed case histories of three pairs of elementary schools (one urban pair, one rural pair, one suburban pair) that have been observed over a 7-year period during the Louisiana School Effectiveness Study, phases III and IV. These pairs of schools were studied extensively in 1984-85 and again in 1989-90, using staff…

In recent years researchers have had a keen interest in scientific misconceptions and conceptual change. This paper describes approaches that can be used to provide a greater understanding of how students understand reality. The objective is to map belief space or terrain of belief regarding nature, i.e., to map the qualitatively different…

This study explores beginning elementary teachers' instructional computer use, with emphasis on the ways in which these teachers use the computer, influences on these uses, and the impact of these uses on their teaching and socialization into the profession. A qualitative case study research design, drawing on ethnographic methods, was used to…